When the World Goes Black
by Heavenlysoul
Summary: Sasuke lost his sight. Everyone dead after a battle. Only Naruto is left.
1. Chapter 1

**When The World Goes Black**

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Naruto

"What does our village look like today?" asked Sasuke in a quiet voice.

"It full of cherry blossoms. Every tree is in bloom, bearing its beautiful whitish pink flowers. Can you smell it in the breeze? The wonderful fragance of spring?" Naruto said in cheerful tone, trying to hold in tears.

It was not the season, both Sasuke and Naruto is well aware of that. It was like how Naruto said that "The hills were green with colourful flowers, birds are flying and calling each other. The sun is shinning and the air smelt like early spring", yesturday.

Both knew these were all lies. They knew that the real world, their village was not like this. Corspes was piled high in some area and blood splatted all around the village. Buildings crumbling down and the faces of the hokages are gone, blown to bits.

This was what the village of the Hidden leaf became. Yet, still like a child clinging to hope, Sasuke continued to believe Naruto, continued to play his game of make believe.

Akatsuki had attacked a few days ago with Sasuke and his group right on their tail. The outcome lays before them and also the bandage around Sasuke's eyes. He has lost his sight and his memory. He does not even remember who he was, let alone what happen. That it was he, who did as much damage as Akatsuki.

Naruto was not seeing the cherry blossoms, he was seeing a stone slab at the training ground. The very ground they have competed for bells. The stone stabs of the dead heros.

His eyes scanned the new additions - Hatake Kakashi, Iruka Umino, Nara Shikarmaru, Ino, Sai, Neji, Lee, Tenten...

He stopped at a name, Sakura Haruno. The woman he loved most in the world. The one of the few he had sworn to protect, died in his arms

Flashback

"Why, why did you do this?" howled a stricken Naruto.

The sight of his beloved Sakura limp form in Sasuke's arms, blood trickling down the side of her mouth, left him a feeling of utter uselessness.

"Be...b..because I..I loved both of you too much, t...to l.let you kill each other. Please live, live both of you... fo...for my sake. Na.Nar.Naruto and S.Sa..Sasuke, please don't die..." with that her hand slumped to the ground.

"SAKURRRRRAAAAAAAAA!!!"

"End of flashback"  
Hands appeared in front of him, jolting him out of his daze. He watched with awe as those hands that had caused the destruction of his village, reached up to touch and feel his face as if trying to memorised every physical structure, every scar that marked Naruto's face.

Sasuke continued to touch that face, trying to find clues to his past, to picture the face of a voice that was so familiar.

"I can't remember how you look, or really who you are. You must be a close friend of mine, aren't you? You must know all about me. Who am I and why have I became like this."

"Yes, you and I. We were best friends and rivals." Naruto replied emotionless

"Till you left for Orochimaru, power and cut that cruical link." he thought bitterly.

Sasuke did not miss the past tense. He realised that he must have cut that bond someway, somehow. However he did it, he thought he must have regretted or was forced to do so. It must be like that, if his heart is telling the truth. It aches and squeeze into a tight contraction when he heard those words. He would never willingly let go of Naruto, no way, never!.

Tears trickled onto the hand, as Naruto would not hold back tears as the past events finally hit him in full. He had lost everything and everyone. That hard earned respect and love from his friends are now gone with them, as once again he found himself alone, with a young man he would have never thought to have return. The young man that has tried to kill him not once but twice. The young man, he has to do whatever it takes to cure his memory loss and regain his eyesight. It was the last promise he said and it will also be the last one he kept even if it was going to be partially broken.

He has decided to help Sasuke to regain the things he has lost. It would be his debt to Sakura, his burden to her before he departs this world and join her on the other side.

'Do you really want to know about the past? It is not all rose- glinted as you might expect. Our pasts was not pretty, especially yours!'

Those hands dropped to Sasuke's side

"Yes"

One simple word, with all the uncertainty of a man unsure. He doesn't know how he will take it or how he will deal with his past if it comes back.

He just wants to know about this person. The person in front of him, is the most important person. For good or bad, he is willing to risk it just to remember this person.

Interlude of Realisation

As he quietly sat and listened to this young man's sad voice, the monotone of a lonely soul.

The emotionless eyes stared out, searching for the missing element, the missing reason, the definition of love.

Sasuke felt a twinge of pain as his heart echos the same emptiness that Naruto has experienced. As if, he, himself, knows how it feels to be alone, to be frighten, to put a barrier so high around his heart that he can scorn at anyone who even tries to knock on them. Yet, someone did, smashing those walls with golden lights.

That tug on his heartstring was a massive blow to Sasuke. It reminds him, that there was someone who broken down that fortess to reveal, not a monster, but a small lost figure in the dark corner, all huddled up. A small boy of six, with wild black hair and skinny features. Red eyes filled with tears, black commas spinning in fear.

He shook his head to try and clear those startling emotions accompanied by images that was so familar yet so foreign to him. Images of his past, he assumed, trying to play like a fast forward dvd.

He fought off the urge to just grab Naruto, his guiding sun, his gentle moon, and bury his head in the nook of his shoulder. He wanted to cry like a lost child for him, for Naruto, for the world that has gone terribly wrong.

He will just have to settle for listening to the story of their lives.

You must think life was nothing but a struggle to survive for me. So hard and unforgiving, but in fact, I had never thought of it like that. Not once did I wonder if the  
heavens dealt a severe hand to me. Maybe because I had never had any other kind of life for me to compare it to. This was my only chance, my only way of living. All in all, it was not a bad way to live. The cup is always half full, not empty, right?

Over there, was once the greatest relic of this village, "The Hokage Mountain", now only crumbling rocks and pile of dust.

People in the village always considered me as a prankster. Never once did they wonder why I did what I did. Attention. That was all I wanted. I wanted that feeling - Acceptance. Someone to say simply - " That enough. Naruto, what you are doing is wrong" in a gentle voice. To hug me and say "Don't worry, you exist."

I didn't just paint the Hokages' faces for fun. It was a sign of respect. I acknowledged them as the greatest man in our history. I just had to point out that I will become the BEST in history... never got around to that did I?

The fourth Hokage, the face that I painted on the most. The one that I respected the most. The legendary man that bound Kyuubi in me to save this village. My father. The hero of the country, but a traitor to me.

He has abandoned me to become nothing but an empty, smiling shell.

He sacrificed the one he love most to save the thing he loved most. I wonder, was it worth it, Dad? Did the think you love most, cared for your loss or did they brush him aside like shit?

Where did these tears come from? I shouldn't be able to shed these tears. My heart is meant to be stone. Where are my walls, what happen to my fortress? Why now after so many years...how can it be that it took this long to...

Anyway, I was never the brightest light bulb at the academy. It took me three whole years to pass the final exam. Even then I passed only because I broke the rules, because I was used as a tool for someone else's game. But, I guess, earning Iruka's respect and the shadow clone technique made up for it. Also learning about my past help me understand the villagers' reasoning. And just how wrong they are.

Well, if it didn't take me three years, I wouldn't have met you or Sakura. May be it just fate. May be now the heavens decided to play with me. The first time I saw Sakura, my heart gave way. I thought I met the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. The guardian angel that will make me king of the world. How wrong I was? Her first words to me was "Baka!". She, influenced by her family, without a reason, without trying to understand, considered me an idiot, trouble not worth to befriend. I was nothing in her eyes. Trash if you like. While my heart and mind was filled with images of her, she was fawning over you. Hah, how funny huh? You were everything back then. Mr. Cool, smart and good looking. I envied you. I wanted to know what was so great about you. But never once considering to be you. I, once remembered, thinking your eyes looked so cool, yet it has a touch, a slight touch of loneliness. I want to be your rival but end up being your teammate.

I worked hard to prove people wrong. I never regret it, I gave 120 to the dream of being the greatest Hokage. I wanted to prove to Sakura that I was worthy of her love. Now, now all I have left is wonder did I have it wrong? Maybe it was best to stay the idiot, not to prove myself to anyone. Not forming any bonds, not learning to love. Maybe that was best. Maybe then Sakura would still be alive, would still turn up her nose at me and call me "Baka!". If I didn't make those connections or those bonds with Neji, Hinata, Kakashi and everyone, they would still be alive and not dead trying to save me. How did I let this happen? How did I let the woman I love, die in my arms, uttering the words I had waited to hear, "Because I love you..."? How...why...???

Tears, why? Not again. I'm human after all. Nothing but a weak human. 

"Because we are nothing more then humans, Naruto."

"Because we're just humans"

Sasuke looked up with tears falling, wetting his bandage. How can he stop them? How can he stop how he feels? After all, he is just a human being.


	2. Chapter 2

"Because we are humans"

That right, Sasuke, you got it in one. We are nothing but mere humans. Humans with emotions so colourfully mixed together, that they drive the soul to damnation.

Jealousy come hand in hand with love.

The need to own and possess matched with lust and greed.

Happiness clashes with sadness.

Hatred and anger combined with harmony and peace to equate a world gone crazy.

A portait, no, a landscape of emotions are nothing but a mess of lines and colours.

Then there are the hidden feelings that the soul as a whole can never begin to comprehend. The feeling, the need to protect the things or the ones we cherished. The need to fight a losing battle, to just save that one person, you call friend, brother, your very existence. To blindly walk into a trap, knowing full well that death is at the door, knocking, ready to transport you to hell. Yet, your body moves on its own, shielding, yielding to the heart, saving the one that you can't live without. You done that once for me. Now it is my turn. I will help you return your eyes and pay back that life I owed you.

It is also the feelings that make you foolishly give up the life you have. That life that was precious. The life that meant more to those that love you then to you, yourself. The life that was cut short to stop a battle between brothers, friends and rivals. The life used as a tie strangling one with a hold so tight, he can only suffocate and holding the other together. The life thrown away for the ones she loved. For the men she could not choose between. Her heart was balanced, too balanced to choose.

So this is what they called enlightment? To love is to suffer? Well, I guess the monks had it right. All roots of evil begins with emotions.

Love is a funny thing. It can be the weakest thing in the world. A folly, a mistake that can be corrected when your crush does something to disillusion you. It can be the strongest bond, the toughest decision, the meanest words to blindly defend. It can be the jealousy that break up brothers or destroy a loving pair of sisters. It can be the thing that you die for. All in all, it is nothing but an emotion that rules this world. That rules our lives, our heart and our soul. Yet, not one of us can escape some form of it.

Haku, the purest soul we met, taught that lesson well, with no dreams, but to achieve the dream of the man that mean everything, and I mean everything to him. The man he died for, the man he defended with his last breath. The man, he broke his heart, in an attempt to be the 'tool' of a shinobi, who said such harsh words only till the end. Till he too can no longer hold those emotions in, and his demise was due to his heart being touched by a angel of the highest purity. The one that open his eyes and his heart to what is know as love and companionship, of being human. He died, not as the 'demon' but as a broken soul, lying next to a teary corpse of an angel.

Love for your clan, love for your village, love for your friends, love for your beloved, love for honour and love for your family. If you are human, you know what love is. All the names on this plate are proof of that. Love has won and its price, its prize, lives. Lives of these heros, these foolish dead heros.

Yes, we are humans alright. Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm serious getting too much into writing this. It getting hard not to cry or get sad.


	3. Chapter 3

Sasuke put his hands firmly onto the uneven ground. Its rocks and dirt caressing his pale skin, not like he took any notice. His anger was at its limits.

Enough is enough! He wasn't gonna stand for this! Even if he is blind, he knows how wrong Naruto was, how irrational he has become.

If he must, he will shake the disillusional man till his senses return!

Standing up slowly, finding his bearing with his hands, treading each step slowly and steadily. Not wanting to fall to his death too soon. Death just gonna have to wait. He needs to teach Naruto to trust and to love first, or maybe it was again, he wasn't sure. To learn that even if we are humans, the best thing of being humans are these emotions, these feelings that transcends time and space.

Sasuke gonna beat him over the head with the sentiment till it gets through. How he going to manage that, with these blind eyes? He does not know, but he will, he must to save this one soul that meant to him the world, the one man that needs him now to live, not a happy life, but to live. Live to relearn all those wonderful things he has lost. Live to be his pillar of support as he will be.

"Sasuke! Why? What are you doing? You will fall and hurt yourself!" exclamide a startled Naruto.

"Even if I do. Even if I fall into the endless darkness. Into the pit of hell. Into oblivion. I must do what it takes. I must wake you from that state of mind. From that miserable stupor" an agitated Sasuke firmly spoke in a tone of compassionate, of love, of the need to protect the mind of the man that will forever be by his side.

That tone, those words struck hard home. It struck where it meant to like an arrow speeding through the air to his heart, pass those walls, to the very centre of his being.

Naruto has lost and he knows it all to well. He has lost all the memories of happiness, of innocence, of times when smiles and laughter was all he could hear. This was what people meant when they said 'Circumstances make you who you are" Yes this is part of growing up. It is apart of growing up, to school your face into a cold smirk, nod polite to those you hate and to lose those precious childhood memories.

"Naruto, have you ever heard a song called "Another day in Paradise"?'

_**"She calls out to the man on the street **_

_**'Sir, can you help me**_

_**It is cold and l've no where to sleep**_

_**Is there somewhere you can tell me"**_

If you are looking for a place to sleep, my arms are wide open. I'm a god, I can't stop the rain or thunder, but I will shield you from them, and this harsh world.

_**"She calls out to the man on the street **_

_**He can see she's been crying **_

_**She's got blisters on the soles of her feet**_

_**She can't walk but she trying"**_

Call out to me anytime, and I be right over, stumbling, falling but eventually, I will be there. With these blind eyes all i can give you are these shoulders to carry you. To dress those blisters around your heart. To heal them with the love I have for you. I will carry you anywhere you need to go. You don't need to walk if you can. I will lend you these shoulders for a lifetime"

Stunned by his own emotions, Sasuke waved his hand around trying to connect it to a man. A man he can barely remember. A man, that he doesn't have a face for. A man that he has entrust his life with.

'If I have to sing a song, or if I have to say these words to wake you. I will.

Listen closely to them, these are my words, my reply to the tirade you have been giving me:

_**'With these human hands that God has given me.**_

_**I shall protect you from harm**_

_**Please open those weary eyes **_

_**See the light that is within these hands**_

_**I will be your moon**_

_**The light that guides you to safety.**_

_**Place that burden on my shoulders **_

_**I will forever hold you so **_

_**Lean on me **_

_**Place that head where it belongs**_

_**In the nooke of my shoulder **_

_**Sleep away all those tears**_

_**Know that I will be your pillar **_

_**Now and forever**_

_**Place that burden on my shoulders **_

_**I will forever hold you so **_

_**Lean on me.**_

_**And I promise to never let you go."**_

Finally, those wondering hands found its target, and wrapped themselves around a crying Naruto. As the sun sets in the distance, both boys are locked in an embrace.


	4. Chapter 4

Forgive me, for I have made the mistake. This fatal mistake. Forgive me, for ... for my intoxicating love. I love you, simple and true. I love you with this stony noir heart of mine, with this selfish, childish soul of mine. I love you with every atom of me. Obsessively and possessively. Unconditionally.

Sakura, please forgive me, my love was a prison, that trapped you in, that cost you your life. When? Why did you fall in love with me? When did your heart decide to branch out? Why did you keep quiet? How did I missed it all?

Oh yeah, actually I gave an answer to that last question. I missed it because I was too busy trying to retrieve Sasuke, to stop those tears, those silent tears of heartbreak falling. To win a spot in your heart. It didn't matter how small, how little it was.

I didn't mind. I could live with the fact, the pain of losing you to him as long, just as long as I saw that smile, hear that laughter. As long as I can bring happiness to you, I was happy. As long as you acknowledged my existence. I totally missed that you learnt to love me. To love me more then a friend, even more then Sasuke, to be confused on my behalf, to die for me, protecting me, exchanging your precious blood for the blood of the unwanted.

I totally missed the fact that those tears was for me. It was shred due to your confusion, due to your love for me.

I have lost you to heaven. You left here as you wash away your heavenly crimes. You must have broken the cup that held the elixir of pain and sorrow, because an angel like you can only be on earth as punishment of the cruelest degree. You had to die with so much suffering, over the emotion name love to be square.

I remember meeting you for the first time in the classroom. With your cute face and pink hair, you swept me into a love filled haze. It was love at first sight. I smiled at you so brightly only to have you turn your nose up at me. You ignored me, look down at me, found me annoying. In your eyes, it was only Sasuke. And yet, I still love you. with everything I got.

With these hands, I was going to build us a house worth living in, have five kids running wild, proud that their dad was the Hokage and a wife that love me, and that wife was you and only you.

That was my second dream and far more important then just being Hokage, just to be love by you.

I'm sorry, Sakura ...I'm sorry ... I had never stopped loving you, I really haven't ...It just ... I can no longer kept the promise to you living has no more significance. I have paid my debt and part of the promise to you. Sasuke has his memories and eyes back


	5. Chapter 5

In the king size bed, a raven is holding a blonde in a tender embrace, as if he intends to do so forever. Their bodies entwined, vibrating the sense of warm and belonging. To all that witnessed this scene can only assume that these two are lovers.

How far wrong can they be? Sasuke has regained his eyesight and has his memories back. He knows full well who had destroyed his village, who has killed the people most important to his Naruto and he knows the simple fact, he loves blindly and foolishly that sun, those blue ocean eyes, that whiskered cheeks and that tan skin. He WILL not let Naruto go, no matter how much he struggles. No matter how much he pleads. No matter how hard he tries, Sasuke Uchina, will not let Naruto follow in the footsteps of one Sakura Haruno. How can it be, that after all these years, after she is dead, does she still have a bigger portion of Naruto's heart then him? He will not allow it! He needs his sun, he needs his Naruto to much for her to take him away. Sasuke will collapse and so will this village.

Yes, that is correct. If he falls, so does Konoha! Why you ask? Met Sasuke Uchina, the Sixth Hokage of Konoha. Unbelievable, but true, he took the title by force. True he had to kill a few people to get it. But, still the ultimate fact, the final outcome is the he is the Hokage.

He didn't particularly wanted the title but having a village as a bargaining chip against Naruto was too good to resist. That was how and why Naruto can never leave his side, can never try to commit suicide again, to rejoin his dear departed friends.

Beside, Sasuke remembers clearly and selfishly that his dobe owes him, his life. If it wasn't for Sasuke, Naruto would be dead so many times on missions. So in actual fact, Naruto's life is really his, right? Funny how the mind works, how it can get so twisted when it comes to an obsession. Excuses must be made so we can rationalised our actions. No matter how cruel or how much pain we cause as long as we have a "just" reason, a strong fate that what we are doing is the best, nothing else matters.

Two young boys that has lost everything. Fighting to survive, to live in the some makeshift way. They only had each other. It was the two of them against the world. Fighting incredible odds, determined to rebuild and protect what was precious to them. Well one of them was, the other was asking for forgiveness for his sin. The sin of loving another. The sin of loving a man. The sin of loving the man that was the instrument to the death of his beloved. The man that destroyed Konoha the first time, and will not hesitate do so again. The man that stopped his reunion with Sakura by force four years ago. The man that has turned him into nothing, but a sex toy, just so he can keep him by his side. The man named Sasuke.


End file.
